


A Deal With God

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Runaways (Comics)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-20
Updated: 2006-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:46:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1639691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Story by HotelMontana</p><p>It was her fault.  Gert didn't know how, exactly, but she knew it was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Deal With God

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to Karabair and Sionnain for the much-needed betas. Herk Harvey's Carnival of Souls provided a lot of the inspiration.
> 
> Written for Shall

 

 

 

 

If I only could

I'd make a deal with God

And I'd get him to swap our places.

\- Kate Bush, "Running Up That Hill"

A DEAL WITH GOD

The clock read 12:36. Its red light glowed, harsh and strange, against the aubergine of Gertrude Yorkes' windowless bedroom.

Gert, who, for some time, had thought that underground, both physically and metaphorically, was a ridiculous way to live, though one that she was able to tolerate out of a well-developed understanding of the reptilian inner workings of the adult brain, was beginning to appreciate the lack of intrusive outside light and sound. The world above the tar pits was not one she wanted to participate in.

She lay on her back with her hands folded across her stomach, her shoulders square and tense, feet outstretched and thighs close together. It was a comfortable position, quiet and easy; and she wished she could sleep again. She'd had too brief a respite from her friends, with their concerned good intentions and exaggerated kindnesses, and from herself, the soundtrack of horror that had taken up permanent residence in her head, since the night of the observatory fire. She just wanted a little time. A little peace. Some concord amongst her brain and heart and stomach. Gert hadn't been able to eat since that night. There was a pain deep in her gut, and the thought of food sickened her.

If this was going to be how she finally lost the weight, she thought her future self was an asshole for not mentioning it. She might have at least told Gert to bulk up while she could. Future-Gert had been right about one thing, though. She never did tell Chase that she loved him.

And now it was too late.

In movies and books, grief was always described as numbing, as though it was a sedative, with stricken souls sleepwalking through life. Gert wished that were true; that, torpid and stupid, she might feel nothing at all. Her sorrow felt like cuts from a razorblade. If she held perfectly still, she could almost make believe it wasn't there; but when she moved it was an agony that hijacked her faculties. She wasn't herself anymore. The pain walked and talked for her.

It was the wrongness of it that hurt so much. It was wrong that Chase was dead; she knew that to be unquestionably true. She wasn't one to believe in things, but she felt a fatalism she hadn't thought herself capable of. Gert was beginning to think that was seeing the eschatology of them all.

That hurt, too. She hadn't thought she'd ever feel like this, that she could be so needlessly, unreasonably angry at them. They were all so fragile, none more so than Chase. When Gert saw Victor's hand on Nico's hip, sweet in its intimate affection, Gert felt an unspeakable rage that. It was a familiar sensation -- a primal desire to hurt and punish that flowed freely through her link with Old Lace. She wanted to punish Nico for being so foolish and trusting. No matter how many men Nico threw herself at, her innocence was unwavering. She never stopped trusting, not really.

And Victor, who played the clown, cracking jokes about Chase as he ran with unthinking loyalty into the fire. Gert he loathed Victor for that little cruelty, that last, tactless jab at Chase's place in their group.

Molly was the most difficult. Molly was too young. Being the strongest little girl in the world didn't make her any less of a child. She still wanted arms around her while she cried. She wanted someone older and wiser to tell her that everything was going to be OK. Even after everything, she still wanted a parent's comfort. Gert felt like screaming at Molly, wanted to tell her to shut up and go away. The guilt was almost equal to the anger; hating Molly was like wanting to kick a puppy every time it licked her hand.

But that wasn't the worst of it. What hurt most of all was her utter certainty, her complete conviction that Chase was in Hell. That he was going to be forever tormented for sins he hadn't had the chance to balance out. Chase struggled with his inherited villainy more than she, or Nico, or even Victor had. So, when Molly asked Gert if she thought Chase was in Heaven, there was nothing Gert could do but stare at her, horrified.

"The Leapfrog says he is, but..." Molly shrugged, not wanting to say that she didn't quite trust the opinion of a Keropi-shaped vehicle.

These were things Gert wasn't supposed to believe in. Not in any way. Not on any level. Being Jewish, she wasn't supposed to believe in Hell. And being a self-made agnostic, she wasn't supposed to believe in anything at all. Not in anything as concrete as eternal damnation, anyway. The problem was that, the more she thought about it, the more she was sure that Chase was somewhere terrible. Somewhere he wasn't supposed to be. Not really.

She thought she could hear him screaming, always screaming. Forever burning. And it was her fault. Gert didn't know how, exactly, but she knew it was.

When Victor heard over his scanner that Starbucks was in danger of extinction, Gert couldn't go with them. She just couldn't do it. She couldn't pretend it was OK that Victor was doing Chase's job. That he was taking over without even really trying. The coup was effortless; even more so because the king was already dead. And Gert couldn't make believe that it didn't matter and she couldn't go save the Los Angeles. Not while Chase was burning, burning, burning in her head.

Gert watched her friends leave, the Leapfrog jerking and sputtering as Victor learned to fly. And then, with Old Lace beside her, she left the Hostel. She felt no lingering sadness about walking out into the disgustingly grimy Los Angeles night. It was as though she didn't belong there, anymore. Quickly crossing through the park, Gert had the strangest thought; all of these days, she had felt as though she wasn't even there. It was as though she had never come back from the observatory.

Gert walked away. She didn't look back.

There wasn't a plan. She didn't have anywhere to go. For hours, she and Old Lace wandered. The streets were anomalously deserted. The city was probably barricaded in their homes in fear of the impending loss of the Caramel Macchiato. There was a time when Gert would have been equally petrified at the idea of going forever without delicious caramel syrup, a thought that seemed ridiculous now. Since that night, she'd lost her taste for everything.

It had started out as aimless roving, so Gert was surprised when she eventually found herself at the Hollywood sign, where they would have buried Chase, had there been anything left to bury. She scrambled over the fence with difficulty, leaving Old Lace to fret behind her.

This Hollywood was not the place of which people dreamed. This scrubby slope, with its police protection and it eight-foot fences, was the reality of the city. A sign that said, "Look at us! Look at us -- but, no! Don't touch!" This was the real Los Angeles. This was breasts, hard with silicon, and bodies starved, wasted and thin. This was orange Mystic Tan and glowing white veneers. This was the money and make-up that hid the rotting core.

There was smoke in the city and fire. Out there, something moved. Something dark and violent razed it all, taking it back from the movie stars and the porno stars and the rappers and the studios. Back to a time before it was all coffee chains and plastic surgeons. The city was burning. Burning like Chase had. Like Gert was certain he still did.

Gert stood on an outcropping in the side of the hill, just below the first _l_ in _Holly_. The wind picked up, warm and strange, bringing desert smells with it, as though the Santa Anas were coming in. Old Lace could feel it, too -- a funny shift in the way the air hit their skin. The way it tasted. She raised her arms up; the wind seemed to help lift them. The night was clear, the stars visible in sharp relief against the black sky. It was as though the winds had blown the city away, smoggy clouds and all, leaving what it had been a hundred, two hundred, a thousand years before. Clean and perfect. The way it should have stayed. Gert looked up at the perfect cosmos and, without knowing why, she prayed.

She prayed for Chase. Even then, with her arms outstretched and her lips moving silently, she was haunted by his screams, plagued by her surety that Chase was going to spend all of eternity burning in that building.

There hadn't been enough time. Not for him. Chase hadn't had enough time to fix what was wrong with him. And there had been something wrong with him. Though she loved him, she knew it was true. Just like there was something wrong with her, now.

Gert prayed. And when she ran out of prayers, she begged. If only Chase could have another chance. She would do anything, sacrifice anything. She would sacrifice herself. If Chase could have just one more try, the universe could have her. She didn't care.

Of what happened next, she couldn't be sure. Whether she slipped on the dangerous hillside, or if the ground just gave out from under her, the result was the same. Gert fell, hearing, as she was yanked away, Old Lace's bewildered growl. She fell, expecting to hit the ground with jarring, teeth clattering force. Crunching bones. Her glasses smashed. Pain and sobbing and no one to rescue her.

But the ground never came, never rose up to break her. She just fell, and kept falling, like Alice after the White Rabbit. The wind rushed around her, ruffling her hair and clothes. It was warm and smelled sweetly like gardenias and myrrh.

And then it stopped. Everything stopped. The whole world stopped, and Gert with it. For a moment, she was suspended in womblike warmth and comfort, but then the world came rushing back to her again. There was firm ground beneath her feet and sounds, and smells, and heat. Gert opened her eyes.

She watched Chase, alive and well, run toward the burning observatory, heedless of the danger.

Beside her, Victor spoke. "You and Old Lace go after Leeroy Jenkins. I know how to handle the gamers."

Gert looked up at Victor and laughed. She wondered why she had been so angry at him, when he had only ever wanted her to like him. She wanted to tell him that he was a good teammate and a good sport and, most of all, a good person. She wanted to tell him that he was her friend and had been since the day he was born, even if it would be years before they met. She wanted to wish him good luck and tell him that he was going to do just fine. He was going to turn out OK. There were so many things she wanted to tell him. So many messages she wanted him to take back to the rest of her friends.

But there just wasn't time.

Chase disappeared into the flames. Gert took a deep breath and started after him. She felt a swelling in her chest, a wave of love for the family she chose and a profound sense of satisfaction that this was what should have happened in the first place. That she was setting the world right again.

Gert ran into the flames.

 


End file.
